Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard

English knights at a disadvantage against their continental foes. Nonetheless, it would
be wrong to see them wholly or even primarily as training grounds. It would be equally
wrong to draw too clear a distinction between them and 'real' battles. For the
tourneying knight as much could be at stake in terms of wealth, honour, liberty and
life as when he was on military campaign. The desire for ransoms and plunder was as
strong on the battlefield as it was on that of the tournament, and the dangers of injury
or death were perhaps only slightly less great. When the 14th-century knight and
writer on chivalry Geoffrey de Charny discusses where the greatest glory lies for a
knight, whether in the joust, the melee or the pitched battle, the last of these is seen
as more honourable not because the risks were greater but because it offered the
opportunity to show prowess with the greatest range of weapons. Equally the 12th-
century writer Roger of Hoveden's comment that a novice knight learned at the
tournament what to expect in battle, the cracking of teeth, the sight of his own blood',
is as much an indicator of the dangers and risks of the tournament as it is indicative
of the tournament as a valid preparation of war. As in any contact sport injury was
common; broken fingers and noses, fractured limbs and skulls, bruises and cuts would
have been the norm. The knight and poet Ulrich von Lichtenstein, a real knight who
was a key figure in the German tournament circuit in the 1250s, lost a finger after
being struck by a lance, whilst the English knight Robert Fitz Neal suffered
permanent brain damage after a blow to the head in a tournament around 1350 as did
a son of Philippe III of France in 1279. Deaths were rare, however, even in the early
days of tournaments before specialized armour and lances with coronels. More often
than not they were caused by men falling and being trampled beneath the hooves of
the horses, like Henry lis fourth son Duke Geoffrey of Brittany in 1185, rather than
by the blows of the opponents. Nevertheless, accidents could still happen; as late as
1559 King Henry II of France was killed at a joust when splinters from his opponent's
lance pierced his visor.
BATTLEFIELD EXPERIENCE
Whilst the tournament held some lessons for the new knight it still could not fully
prepare him for the rigours of campaigning. Pitched battle might indeed be rare, but
there were ample opportunities to learn in the skirmishes and raids that were a regular
part of medieval warfare, particularly during the 11th and 12th centuries when private
conflicts and feuding were endemic or in the almost continuous campaigns across
France and its border in the 14th and 15th centuries. That series of conflicts known
as the Hundred Years War also saw the schooling of a whole new demographic of
TACTICS AND TRAINING -}=>•
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